- Hi, thanks for joining us for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Herbs can add flavor to your food, and if you have an herb garden, you can pick them fresh whenever you want.

That's just ahead on The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

- (female announcer) Production funding for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South is provided by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund and by viewers like you, thank you.

[upbeat country music] - Welcome to The Family Plot, I'm Chris Cooper.

Joining me today is Mr. John Peterson.

Mr. Peterson is a Memphis area Master Gardener.

So John, it's good to have you here.

- It's great to be here, thank you.

- Welcome to The Family Plot garden.

- Thank you.

- I know you like herbs.

- Oh, yes.

- Look at all the herbs we have for you.

- A wonderful array of herbs.

We're gonna have some good meals from this.

- Oh, some good meals, okay.

All right, so I know we're gonna be planting herbs.

So what are some of the things we need to know?

The basics of planting herbs.

- Okay.

Herbs like sun, and this will be sunny.

- Yes, yes, it will be, yes, it will.

- And they like good drainage, by and large.

And there are some that are even fussy beyond that, lavender and sage come to mind.

But we keep trying.

And with this raised bed, that should work well.

We have a lot of different leaf shapes, a lot of different textures, some different leaf colors.

You don't grow herbs for their flowers by and large, but for their foliage.

And so this is a wonderful bunch of choices of herbs.

So let me start, I'm gonna plant this dill.

And one of the reasons I'm doing this one, is because I have learned by unfortunate experience, that if you start on the outside, then when you go to plant the things on the inside, you're stomping over what you've just planted-- - Oh, that makes sense.

- It's not a good idea.

Oh, this is nice and loose.

- Do you like it?

- I like it.

- Now, any special planting techniques we need to know about when you're planting many of your herbs?

- No.

I mean, the standard thing that whatever the soil level is in the pot is the soil level that you wanna match it in the garden.

- Look at the root system.

- Yes, so nice.

Or perhaps just a little bit high, which will help drainage.

But there it is.

Another thing to think about is that some of these plants will go through their life cycle earlier.

The dill will probably be done by mid-summer.

And so then other plants will take their place.

We have some oreganos here, which will keep on going, and could stay green all winter.

- Oh, that'd be good.

That'd be good.

- Yeah because there are perennial herbs that die to the ground.

There are perennial herbs that stay green.

The thymes stay green, rosemary stays green.

- Right.

Okay.

And I noticed something else you did here.

When you put it into the ground, we probably need to save that as well.

It's always good to make sure we... - Thank you.

Yes.

- ID our plants.

- Yes.

- The tag.

- The tag.

- And not only the tag, but... put it so the person on the outside of the garden can read it.

Don't reverse it.

- Ah, I like that.

All right.

- I'm speaking from silly experience sometimes.

[Chris laughs] One of the things that's nice about dill..

I grew up thinking about dill, that there was dill seeds.

And my mother did pickling and things like that.

So I was familiar with that.

Fresh dill is wonderful in a salad.

It does not taste the same as the seeds.

So that's one of the advantages you have when you're growing these things in your garden.

- How about that?

So you remember a lot of these herbs as you were growing up?

- Yeah.

- Oh, pretty cool.

- Yeah.

My mother grew three.

She grew mint from which she made jelly, and she made sage from which she made stuffing at Thanksgiving time and chives.

And I'm not sure what she did with that.

She would not have thought of herself as an herb gardener, but she grew those.

- And now you're growing all of those as well.

See that?

- Absolutely.

- See how that works?

That is good.

So where do you wanna move to next?

- Well, let's finish here.

- You wanna finish here?

- Plant these chives.

- All right.

- These are standard chives or onion chives.

There are also garlic chives, which can be a little invasive, but have a nice mild garlic flavor.

- The root systems are real nice on that.

Look at those white fibrous roots.

- Yes, yes.

Beautiful.

- Now, do we need to break that apart?

Or you can just plant it just like that?

- These look tender.

So I'm going to just plant the whole thing.

Later in the year, I might want to divide it or next spring.

These things will be bigger and they'll be stronger.

Chives, of course, you can snip them off, put them in salads, put them in scrambled eggs, whatever.

When they bloom, they bloom a beautiful purple flower that breaks into little pieces.

And you can sprinkle those on a salad or whatever.

And it's really pretty.

And purple is just not the standard color of our food.

So it's a nice thing.

- It is good.

Hey, Mr. Jones, you're making me hungry already, talking about these fresh herbs and food.

Wanna move down this way?

- Sure.

Let's go after... - So who do we have here?

- This is sage.

- All right.

- Okay.

- I'll grab that for you.

- Thank you.

Sage can be a little bit touchy here.

I grow it in a pot at home.

I think having this raised bed should really do it.

Knock on wood.

- Or stone, right?

- Yeah.

Whatever we've got.

There.

We hope that's gonna be happy.

- Ah.

We'll find out.

- Next to it we have pineapple sage.

And this is one of the exceptions of herb flowers, because in fall, the pineapple sage will be covered with just brilliant red flowers.

- Oh, nice.

- And the insects go crazy for it.

So I have a friend in the Herb Society who says, when you make a pineapple upside down cake, she lines the pan with these leaves.

- Oh, how about that?

I've never heard that before.

- And I haven't done it, but I don't think she would lie to me.

[Chris chuckles] Let's get this parsley in here.

There are two principle varieties of parsley.

There's actually a third that makes a big root that looks like a white carrot.

But mostly we deal with curly- and flat-leaf parsley.

We have both ready for this garden.

This is curly-leaf parsley.

There are, what shall I say?

Parsley aficionados maybe anyway, that insist on one or the other.

And usually if they're going to insist on one, they insist on the flat leaf.

I'm glad for whatever grows.

- Whatever grows.

I'm with you on that one.

[Chris laughs] - A few years ago, I kept having a problem with parsley in my garden.

It would just start to wilt.

And of course my impulse was to water it.

- Of course.

Of course.

- And what I was doing was drowning my plants, because I discovered that parsley, its botanical name, Petroselinum, petro means rock.

- Oh.

- So it really is a rock garden plant, believe it or not.

- It's all in the scientific name.

- Yeah, that helps.

- I got it.

- Okay.

- Now we do have a lavender here.

- Yes.

And we don't know what kind this is, but it's lavender and that's enough.

The lavender names, nomenclature, are really confusing.

There's what's called a Spanish lavender, which it does not have the classic lavender aroma and appearance, but some of those tend to grow a little more easily in the Mid-South.

- Oh, that's good.

- And they have cute flowers.

I mean, cute.

They look like funny little purple bunny ears.

This is the standard lavender flower.

- So we need to look at these roots?

Are they fine, you think?

- Yeah, should we?

- Would you tease 'em?

- Shall we?

- We can.

We can tipple or tease the roots.

- I've heard people say, "Oh, of course you do that."

And I've heard people say, "We spent all this time and money and good soil "growing these great roots.

Don't tear 'em up."

But if we just loosen them a little bit... - Just loosen 'em a little bit.

- Encourage them.

Although with this light soil, I don't think it needs a whole lot of encouragement.

- And it's just been in the pot for a little bit.

That's all.

- Put that to bed.

- All right.

So you put that one to bed.

- Right.

- Okay.

So let's talk about this thyme here.

There's a little history behind this, right?

- Well, there's history behind that one.

- Oh, it's this one.

Okay.

- Let's talk about it.

- Let's talk about it.

Yeah, let's do that.

- This is German winter thyme.

This is a plant that I brought, and I brought it from my garden.

And I bought the original of this sometime in the '80s, maybe '83.

And if you remember what weather was like in the '80s, this or some avatar of it has been through minus four, at least twice.

It's been through 108-- - My goodness.

- Twice.

It's a survivor.

It has a really rich flavor.

And I have heard it said that, if you have a very small space, don't plant both thyme and oregano.

Just choose one.

It would be easy to just do the thyme, particularly this one.

There are so many different varieties of thyme.

We have a lemon thyme and we have two English thyme plants.

That flavor is similar to the German thyme.

And there are thymes that grow closer to the ground.

I'm not sure they do as well with our humidity, but there are lemon thymes, rose petal thyme.

- Hmm, never heard of that.

Okay.

- Yeah.

- It's quite the history though.

- Oh, yes.

- Surely it will survive in our bed, right?

- Oh, it has survived this long in Memphis.

- Sure.

- All right.

- All right.

So that one's put to bed.

- That one is put to bed.

And let's do the English thyme.

- Okay, sure.

- Since we're here.

- Let's put it here.

- Thyme is a traditional border plant in herb gardens because it never gets very tall.

- Hm.

- So I have French thyme at home, and that might get up about so.

But one of the things I love about thyme, the books tell you you need to prune it gently, but frequently.

But what you do when you're doing that is you're cutting off the flowers.

And if you cut off the flowers, you don't get to sit on your porch and look over at the thyme in mid-summer when all of those pollinating insects are going over, and it's vibrating it looks like.

It's just a beautiful sight.

- Oh, that's pretty cool.

All right.

All right.

- There we go.

- Right.

You wanna look at your basil?

- Sure.

We have two kinds of basil here.

We have some Italian basil at the other end of the garden.

And this is Thai basil, which has a little muskier flavor.

- And how tall are those gonna get, you think?

- A couple of feet.

I don't think they'll get taller.

Might by a little.

It is so easy to dig into this soil.

- Oh, it is good.

Let's walk over to this parsley.

- Now this is the flat-leaf parsley.

- Okay.

- Looks a little different.

It has a very, very similar flavor.

I always plant 'em both.

I don't know that I prefer the flavor of one over the other.

They're very similar.

I like the one that grows the best.

They're a biennial, but we treat them as annuals because the second year they will stop putting energy into making leaves and they'll put energy into making seeds.

So there'll be fewer leaves.

It won't change the flavor.

I mean, cilantro, which is a close relative, when it goes to seed, it starts to taste like model railroad oil smells.

But this doesn't, but it'll stop making leaves.

So I plant it every year.

Sometimes I plant it again in the fall.

And for that, usually you can't get the plants at nurseries.

You can get it at high end grocery stores.

- Interesting.

- Interesting.

- Yeah, it is.

- But I always let at least one parsley plant go to seed, because it's so beautiful when it flowers.

- So not only do they taste good, they also look good, huh?

- Yes.

- Look good aesthetically.

Got it.

- And... they are very nutritious.

They are rich in vitamin A, vitamin C and iron.

- Good for you.

- Yes.

But this is doing a lot for me, because we're about to move into an apartment.

I'm leaving my garden.

- Oh!

- So thank you for the opportunity.

- Oh, you're welcome.

Let's look at our basil.

- Here's an Italian-type basil just says sweet basil.

- Sweet basil.

- Yeah.

Make pesto from that.

- Mm-hmm.

I like pesto.

- Oh, yeah.

And, you know, another thing, since basil is very sensitive to cold, you can make pesto and freeze it.

And then you have it all winter.

- Sounds good to me.

- Oh, yeah.

- I actually like the leaves of basil.

- Yes.

- The unique shape.

- Yes.

And and the color is beautiful.

Most herbs really like the summer and the sun and all.

Cilantro is one that is much happier in winter.

It goes to seed when the heat comes on.

And it doesn't taste good when it goes to seed.

But it's very sensitive to heat.

That's what makes it go to seed.

So if you have limited space, you can plant basil and cilantro in more or less the same spot, because the cilantro will be there through the winter.

The basil will be there through the summer.

- How about that?

Learning some good tips here.

Got it.

That is good.

That is good.

All right, Mr. John, we're gonna plant the rosemary.

- All right.

- Do you have any interesting stories about the rosemary?

- I don't know that I have interesting stories, but there are many varieties.

Some of them are not hardy here.

And when we have a winter like the one we just had, none of them are hardy here.

But the ones that I have had the best luck with are Salem and Arp, which the flavor of that is a little more camphory than I like.

And then it's a woman's name.

She's the one who actually developed Arp.

Hill Hardy, Madeline Hill.

And those three have survived most winters until last winter.

- Until last winter, right.

Yeah.

Rosemary smells good.

- Oh, I love it.

- We have a mint, right?

And we have to be very careful with the mints, right?

- Yes, because mint tends to be invasive.

It has wonderful stolons that go halfway across your yard if you let them.

It's a good idea to either plant this in a pot.

And you will find the stolons coming out the drainage holes.

You can do that.

Or this is something that they do at the botanic garden.

This is just something that a shrub came in.

And I cut out the bottom and you sink it into the ground.

Realistically, you dig a hole, and you put this in the ground.

And then you put the soil back in.

But this keeps the stolons from going all over the garden.

That's not to say you won't find a stray or two.

But it makes it a little easier to keep track of.

Our younger son visiting from college one time, looked at the garden and he said, "Well, I see you have your annual explosion of mint."

[both laugh] That was before I started-- - That's before you started.

- Containing it.

All right, Mr. John.

That was neat.

We're gonna go and plant the rest of these herbs.

- All right.

- And we'll see how that goes for us, all right?

- Yes.

- So let's get to it, right?

Alright, Mr. John.

So it looks like we have everything planted here except for our mint and peppermint.

We'll do that next week.

- All right.

- But I have to ask you a question.

- Yes.

- What about watering our herb garden?

Especially when it comes to summer.

- You don't want to drown the plants, but they will need water.

- They will need water.

- Sure.

- Right.

Yeah.

Looks like we have pretty good drainage.

- Yes, absolutely.

- That might work out for us pretty good.

All right.

So what we'll do now is we'll just fill in the gaps with our marigolds and that'll be it.

So thank you Mr. John.

We appreciate you.

- And enjoy a walk through here.

- We'll enjoy it and we'll do it.

- Rub a leaf and smell it and think, "Oh, this is good."

- Oh, this is good, as I think about that food, right?

All right.

Thank you much, Mr. John.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you.

[upbeat country music] - All right, this is a problem I tend to get in the spring, where my hose connects to my sprayer.

It leaks.

So let's go ahead and turn the water off, and take a look at it and figure out why it did that.

Inside of hose connections, there is a small washer, at least there was when it came from the factory.

It sits right in here, except you can see in this one that the washer's gone.

So it probably fell out when I was rolling up the hose, or when I was storing the sprayer for the winter.

Luckily you can go to a big box store, hardware store, and you can buy a small washer that replaces the washer that was in here originally that stops the leaks.

And it has small little nubs on the side here in several places, so it grabs the thread, hopefully keeps it from falling out again.

So I'm gonna go ahead and put this and push it into place right here, seat it to the bottom, and screw my sprayer back on again.

And let's go ahead and turn on the water.

There.

No leaks.

Now I have this nice, tight hose that I can use.

So if you ever have a leak in your hose, check and see if that washer's there.

It could be that it is old and dried out and it just needs to be replaced.

[upbeat country music] - All right, Mr. John, here's our Q and A segment.

You ready?

- Sure.

- These are great questions.

Here's our first viewer email.

"What herbs grow well indoors?"

And this is Ann from Cordova, Tennessee.

So Mr. John, what do you think about that?

- Herbs like light, they like sun.

And so a house is already a little bit of a challenge, but I would think that annuals would grow better, things that aren't gonna form a big root ball.

Parsley, cilantro, any of the basils.

I think those would be good candidates.

- Okay and we of course have to watch the watering on that.

- Oh, yes.

Yeah, you don't want them to have wet feet.

- Now if you put 'em in the windowsill, which direction?

Which window?

- Yeah.

They don't want to bake either.

I don't know.

I've never felt very successful with houseplants.

- All right.

But those are some good examples.

Okay.

And yeah, just don't water 'em too much.

Make sure they get sufficient sunlight.

We think those will be fine.

Annuals.

You said annuals.

All right.

Hope that helps you out, Ms. Ann.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

I like this question.

"As I have a love for pollinators, "I was considering some Joe Pye in my backyard, "but it can get very dry quickly.

Would I need a fire hydrant to keep them happy?"

And this is Bill from Southport, North Carolina.

So a fire hydrant.

The thing about Joe Pye is this, right, loves moist conditions.

'Cause when you see it out in nature, guess where it grows?

Near streams, ditches.

Tells me, yeah, you better have sufficient soil moisture.

Of course it likes conditions, full sun, part shade.

So it can actually withstand periods of drought.

Periods of drought.

But you're gonna need sufficient soil moisture.

So Mr. Bill, that fire hydrant might be a good idea.

[both laugh] It may be a good idea.

So you definitely want to keep it watered.

Beautiful plant.

Does attract a lot of pollinators and butterflies.

- Yes.

- It definitely does that.

Give it a little room, it'll take off, but it has to have sufficient soil moisture.

All right.

So water well, Mr. Bill.

Thank you for that question.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

Oh, it's a common question here, right?

"Many azalea plants were damaged this winter.

"Is there anything I can do to restore them or do they need to be replaced?"

And this is Ruth.

You have any thoughts about that, Mr. John?

- Well, I'm looking at the azaleas in my own yard and thinking I'm gonna wait about a month, and then cut them back and hope that that encourages them.

- I would agree with that.

So Ms. Ruth, patience.

Patience.

- Oh, I'm not good at that.

- We have to be patient though.

- Yeah.

- With warmer weather, the soil is gonna warm up.

And the roots are gonna be taking up a lot of moisture, a lot of nutrients.

Gotta get that foliage that we're looking for, those buds that we're looking for.

But let's wait.

- Yes.

- Let's wait.

So I'm telling people they can wait 'til at least the first couple weeks in May, mid-May or something like that.

We should know by then whether the plant material is gonna make it or not.

And then if we do see it coming back from the roots, then you can prune back 'til you see green tissue.

And I think you should be fine, but patience, Ms. Ruth, patience and I think you'll be fine.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"What can I use to treat insect pests on herb plants?"

And this is Gwen from Memphis, Tennessee.

So you have any thoughts about that?

Treating insect pests?

And of course it would be good to know what pests we are talking about.

- Right.

What pests are we talking about?

But I rarely see insect pests on herb plants.

I mean, they're not fool-proof plants.

But I don't see so much, so I can't really speak to it.

- There's probably the occasional aphid, mealybug or something like that.

But I always encourage people, whether it's herbs or any other ornamental plants, for the most part, low-impact pesticides.

So I'm big on using insecticidal soaps and oils.

Whether it's horticulture oil or neem oil.

Just read and follow the label on that because they're safe, on the plant and for the pollinators, they're safe.

- Right.

But whether you're talking about an indoor or an outdoor plant, you're gonna be eating those herbs presumably.

And so you need to be extra careful about what you put on 'em.

- Yeah.

Especially for the herbs, right?

Anything you're gonna be eating, you definitely wanna be extra careful.

Read and follow the label.

Read follow the label.

But if those plants are healthy, they're strong, they can withstand a little damage.

- Oh, yeah.

- Little damage, right?

But if you have to use an insecticide, low impact.

So again, your soaps and your oils.

Read and follow the label and you should be fine, Ms. Gwen.

Thank you for that question.

All right, Mr. John, thank you much.

Thank you much.

- Thank you.

- All right.

Remember we love to hear from you.

Send us a email or letter.

The email address is familyplot@wkno.org, and the mailing address is Family Plot 7151 Cherry Farms Road, Cordova, Tennessee, 38016.

Or you can go online to familyplotgarden.com.

That's all we have time for today.

Thanks for watching.

If you want to learn more about herbs, head on over to familyplotgarden.com.

We have information there about this and everything else we talked about today.

Be sure to join us next week for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]